DESPERATE MEN
Luke 15:11-31
John Tung, 6-5-05
I. Introduction
A few weeks ago, for Mother’s Day, I gave a message called “Desperate Mothers.” And in that message we looked at three women in the Bible who were desperate mothers due to different reasons. In the case of Eve she was desperate because she had lost one of her child. In the case of Jochebed, Moses’ mother, she was desperate because her child was in danger, and in the case of Hannah, she was desperate because she could not have a child.
And in order to have equal time, I will give a message today not called, “Desperate Fathers,” but “Desperate Men.”
This is because as I thought about what to preach on, the story of the Prodigal Son kept coming back to me. And in that story, there are three men, but only one father, so I decided to preach on that story and talk about the three men in that story, therefore, “Desperate Men.”
So, let’s turn to that famous parable Jesus told in Lk. 15:11-31. [Read.]
II. Desperate Men
A. Younger Son: Desperate to Get Away
The story begins with the younger son who asked for his inheritance from his father.
If we think about that a bit, it doesn’t sound right.
Who asks his father for his inheritance while the father is still healthy and alive?
Wouldn’t that be the height of disrespect and be extremely offensive? I mean, a grown child is very circumspect and careful to touch the issue of inheritance, yet this son just boldly demands, he didn’t even ask, but demands from his living father that he be given his inheritance now.
Nobody makes this kind of demand without previous thought. This son must have spent a good amount of time thinking about what he wanted to do with his life, and how he was going to finance that kind of life, and his conclusion was that he needed the inheritance now rather than later in order to live out the life he wanted.
And maybe he had been giving off that kind of a signal to his father for a while. In other words, he may already have been showing signs of being unhappy at home, discontent with life on the farm, and restless to leave for something else.
In other words, this younger son was desperate to GET AWAY.
When people reach a certain age, many of them have an itch to get away, to pick up their roots from where they grew up and to try to experience a new kind of life somewhere else.
The cities beckon to them. The excitement or imagined excitement of being by themselves, making decisions for themselves, making new friends, getting new experiences, can be so powerful that it pulls many young people from their homes and into the unknown. They are willing to take that risk.
But the Prodigal Son’s behavior is more radical than even that. He was not simply moving away due to a natural milestone in his life – like going to college or taking a new job in another city - his leaving can be seen as an act of rebellion.
We can say that because keep in mind back in the time when this story was told, grown children were expected to stay at home, or at least near by, to take over the family farm, and to care for their parents when they get old, and not wander far away from their parents.
But this younger son was more modern than his peers, and he dared to ask for his money and to leave right now.
Henri Nouwen, a Catholic priest and author, who wrote a book on this parable called The Return of the Prodigal, said this act by the Prodigal Son was “a radical rejection and an offensive act” (cokesbury.com/Pdf/TeachableBooks/57_returnoftheprodigalso.pdf). In other words, if you were the father, you would take this personally as a rejection.
And yet strangely, we do not read anything about the father putting up a fight or resisting this act. Maybe he did resist for a while, but after seeing the intensity and persistence of his younger son’s desire to break free, he decided to let his son go.
And so after a short time the son left, with money in his pocket.
And the story continues by saying in vs. 13 that “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.”
He went to a place known for parties and cool people – in his mind, not like the people back at home - and he partied, he drank, got wasted and caroused. If this happened today, we would add that he took drugs, he clubbed, and he gambled. He indulged his pleasure as much as his money could buy.
And then he ran out of money. It’s amazing how quickly money can be spent if you partied all the time. And that’s what the word “prodigal” means. It means “recklessly wasteful, extravagant, squander.” That’s why this younger son is called the Prodigal son.
Running out of money meant he ran out of fun. It also meant he ran out of friends, at least friends he could party with.
But as if that wasn’t bad enough, vs. 14 tells us that a severe famine hit the whole country and he began to have great need.
It’s not only bad enough to have no money and no friends, but on top of that, to have the whole region go through a deep economic slump and people getting laid off left and right and no one is hiring any new workers - just at the same time when you need a job - how much worse can it get? Talk about bad timing to move into a new area.
Well, when there is no prospect for a respectable job that pays you a decent wage, you have no choice then but to get any job, even if it pays minimum wage and even if it is way beneath your training and abilities. You’ve just got to survive, especially when you feel so ashamed that you can’t even go back home.
So the prodigal son hired himself off to take care of pigs, those unclean animals to the Jewish mind. And the job didn’t make any sense actually, because since there was a famine, the little money he made he couldn’t even buy any food with it. And the only food he got his hands on were the ones he had to feed the pigs with. And he dared not eat that, or the owner would punish him. So he starved. Sometimes, when we are so desperate and in so much sin, our decisions don’t even make any rational sense.
But even though this made no sense, what saved him was that he came to his senses, as vs. 17 says. In other words, when he finally came to the end of himself, one all-important thought saved him.
And that thought was that he had a way out, that there was anther choice, a choice he wasn’t willing to consider until now. And it had to do with who he had: that despite all his losses, he had a father.
His relationship with his father was severely strained due to his irresponsible actions, but at least, perhaps, his father would still help him, even if it meant he was treated as a hired hand instead of a son. That was his last hope for his life.
This shows us that sometimes we need the gift of loneliness and desperation in order for us to repent and go back to God.
We should keep in mind that this prodigal son is not a real person, it represents someone.
And who is that?
It represents the sinner who has run away from God. It represents those who have turned their backs on God, and sought out their own paths in defiance and rebellion against the one who created us and raised us. It represents all of us.
But it also more specifically represents those who are non-religious people, who live without an awareness that they are lost and alienated from God.
Lk. 15 is a chapter that contains three parables all having to do with people who are spiritually lost. And in Lk. 15:1-2, as an introduction, Jesus compared the sinner, those who are non-religious, to those who are religious, like the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. And Jesus said, he is willing to leave the 99 righteous behind, meaning the religious folks, in order to pursue the lonely 1 lost sheep. That sheep is the non-religious person. That sheep is the prodigal son right here. God’s love is so great that he would care deeply even about one lost sheep.
I think the prodigal son can also represent another group of people. And that is young adults. Young adults that we know and love can also grow up where they want to break free. Not the breaking free that is good and even necessary and a natural part of growing up, but the breaking away which breaks away from God.
And we might all know at least one such young adult, who has broken away from God, and is far away geographically, and especially spiritually, for us to reach them.
And what this parable has to say to us who knows such young adults is that we still can pray for them and we can still hope for their return to God one day.
Will all of them return to God? We don’t know. We dare not say that they will all return to God, unless they are part of the sheepfold.
But we also dare not say that they will never come back to God - until truly there is no time or hope left. In the meantime, we can still hope and we can definitely pray for them that they will return to God. And this parable encourages us to have that hope and to believe that it can happen.
I know that parents often blame themselves when their young adults leave God. They fault themselves that they did this wrong thing or that wrong thing in not raising their child properly. They have regrets.
I am not saying parents are perfect; we are not. But neither can we put all the responsibility of our children only on our own shoulders and think that it is all our fault if they left God.
In this parable, there is no indication that the father did anything wrong raising the child. In fact, if anything, it kind of implies that the father did what was right, and yet the child growing up can still rebel.
And that’s a truth too. That rebellion can occur even in a perfect environment. Just look at Adam and Eve.
Sometimes kids who grow up just want to try things personally on their own. And when they are young, we need to put much more limits around that, but as they get older, and it reaches a certain point, we can no longer put limits around them, and that gets scary for us, and that’s when we probably start to really pray to God for them.
B. Father: Desperate to Get Back
But while some young adults we know are desperate to get away, if we see them going down the wrong path, like this father did, we still feel desperate to GET them BACK. And that takes us to the second person in this story, the father.
When our kids grow up and leave us, sometimes the only thing we can do is to pray and to wait. These are very different approaches than when they were younger and still lived with us. Then, it was so active and busy that it seemed hard to find time to pray and very little time to wait.
But relationships change as people change. And that’s what happened here with the father.
He had to wait now while his son sinned. He had to pray now while his son wandered and became desperate. It must have torn his heart to live in that condition. And to have no news about his son, who’s to say the father didn’t think he might have died?
But he is the father, so how could he not feel these fatherly feelings about his own child?
It’s interesting that Jesus didn’t give us much detail about what the father did while the younger son was away. There are no references to his feelings or actions while his son was away. So we have to kind of imagine it. But we get a very good idea of what the father must have done by what he did when he saw his own son returning.
In vs. 20b, it says that, “While he [his son] was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”
This father had been looking for his son so that even though his son on this occasion was still a long way off, the father recognized him, despite the son being disheveled and dirty.
And the father’s heart was so warm and receptive to his son that even before the son could get one word out of his mouth, the father already smothered him in his arms and kissed him. And notice that it says the father ran to his son. His son has returned. The father’s heart which had been broken was being healed.
The feeling here must have been just like that which the OT patriarch Jacob experienced with his son Joseph when they were reunited in Egypt.
After Jacob thought Joseph had died, to be able to see and touch his son Joseph again, was an indescribable experience.
In Gen. 46:28, we read: “Now Jacob sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph to get directions to Goshen. When they arrived in the region of Goshen, 29 Joseph had his chariot made ready and went to Goshen to meet his father Israel. As soon as Joseph appeared before him, he threw his arms around his father and wept for a long time. 30 Israel said to Joseph, ‘Now I am ready to die, since I have seen for myself that you are still alive.’”
Even though in this case it was the son who threw his arms around the father, but the feeling must have been identical to that which the father in Lk. 15 felt with his prodigal son when he finally saw him again.
The Dutch artist Rembrandt was so touched by the story of the Prodigal Son that he has immortalized it in one of his paintings: The ‘Return of the Prodigal Son´ by Rembrandt. (Canvas, ca. 1668-69. Leningrad, The Hermitage.)(www.tiu.edu/psychology/Twelker/rembrandt.htm).
Art critics have pointed out that the center of this painting are the hands of the father: so warm and caring. You can almost feel the forgiveness in those hands and also in the father’s eyes.
This is one of those cases where the forgiveness is offered even before words are spoken because by the very action of the person returning, you know they are already repenting.
But the son did not leave the words unsaid.
Even though he could feel the forgiveness, he still needed to say those words. So he said, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”
That took courage; that took humility. But after what he had gone through, he was ready to say these words.
And of course the father forgave him and immediately the father ordered that a celebration be given for his son. Imagine: a huge party not for a successful achievement or accomplishment, but a celebration because of a repentance.
What is the application for us?
The application is that when any sinner is ready to say, “Father, I have sinned against you, I am not worthy to be called your child,” likewise God the heavenly father will forgive you and there will be a great celebration in heaven because one sinner has come back home. That’s why I also teach a seekers’ class even if it is just for one person. That person may be the lost sheep. To have that person come to Christ is of great worth.
Jesus reinforces this theme in Lk. 15:7 when he said, “I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”
In other words, repentance and return are worth celebrating, as well as accomplishments. It’s not just when your child succeeds that you should celebrate, you should celebrate when your child says he’s sorry.
Some people imagine that God is angry at them and ready to punish them when they come back to God. But this story shows us that it’s the opposite. Our heavenly father is waiting compassionately for the lost sinner to come back to him. When we in humility repent and ask God to take us back, he does not punish us at all, but he welcomes us and calls for a heavenly celebration. That is the heart of the heavenly father.
C. Older Son: Desperate to Get Even
But the story does not end here, even though it could, and if it did, it would sound like a fairy tale and they all lived happily ever after.
But interestingly, Jesus brings up a third person in the story, one whom we had not heard about yet.
And that third person is the older son. He had been in the background, a silent figure, but he now emerges from the shadow.
And he is mad. While the father was ready to forgive, the older brother was not.
He had issues, and all the issues came out in a mean verbal barrage when he saw how his father welcomed this sinful son back and how the father ordered up a big bash for this son.
In vs. 28-20, we read of his anger: “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’”
He wouldn’t even go in to join the party. His own brother who was lost and in sin has now returned, yet the older brother didn’t want to have any part of his return.
What we see here is that while the younger son wanted to get away, and while the father wanted to get him back, the older son wanted to GET EVEN.
How can a sibling be so indifferent to his own brother?
Well, the problem of sibling rivalries is famously described in the Bible.
There are the sibling rivalries of Cain vs. Abel, Ishmael vs. Isaac, Esau vs. Jacob, Joseph’s brothers vs. Joseph. In fact, it seems as if every patriarch experienced sibling rivalry.
If you don’t have a sibling rivalry with your brother or sister, consider that a great blessing, because siblings are meant to bless each other and not to divide against each other, even though due to sin, that does happen.
This older brother resented the younger brother’s getting all the attention. That’s often the reason there is sibling rivalry, there is the perception that one of the siblings is getting preferential treatment or greater love from the parents.
The father’s response is that “you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”
In other words, the father said to his older son, “Even though I didn’t give you a big party, you have to realize how close we came to losing this brother of yours. We really could have lost him for good, and that would’ve been horrible. So, we had to celebrate his amazing return from near death. But as for you, even though I didn’t show it as much, I consider you to be my son forever. And everything I have, except for the loss of this fattened calf, will be yours. So please understand.”
It’s as if a younger sibling was went to Iraq as a US solider and was captured as a prisoner, but then was finally released and allowed to come home, like Jessica Lynch was. Imagine how happy her father would be? Shouldn’t her siblings also rejoice? There is no room for any resentment at that point.
And that’s the exact point Jesus was making.
He was comparing the older brother to the religious Jews - the Pharisees and teachers of the law – who looked down on those who sinned more outwardly, while neglecting their own sins that were inwardly.
After all, isn’t staying home but having resentment in our hearts an inward rebellion, while the one who ran away from home is an outward rebellion? This is the issue that Jesus constantly brought up to those who were religious: that they have to careful that they are not sinning in an inward way, even as they denounce people who sin in an outward way.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5:20).
The older brother sinned like the Pharisees and the teachers of the law did. His righteousness did not surpass theirs. In that sense, he is not yet in the kingdom of heaven yet. His father’s words hopefully had the effect of changing his own heart.
In that sense, both sons were prodigals: one wasted his money, while the other wasted his religious upbringing.
Both sons needed to come to the father to restore their relationship with him. And the irony is that the younger son was actually the first son to recognize his need to repent.
Someone has asked: “Can you imagine if the prodigal son had met his brother first, instead of his father? He probably would have run away in shame at his brother’s reaction. I think Christians often behave this way. We can scare people off with our reactions, before we show God’s love” (http://www.mbherald.com/44/04/painting.en.html).
Wow, that stings! But it’s probably more true than we’d like to admit.
Is there an application we can make for fathers and parents?
I believe there is this lesson we can draw from.
As a parent, you need to watch all of your kids, both those who seem to conform and those who don’t. Those who don’t conform are labeled as troublemakers, and they do have certain issues that have to be addressed. But those who conform, don’t think that everything is fine either. Underneath the conformity may still lie a heart that is rebelling inwardly.
Both types of kids need our attention, our compassion, and our prayers.
III. God’s Love Letter from Genesis to Revelation
I’d like to close with reading something called God’s Love Letter from Genesis to Revelation. One of you here sent this to me about 10 days ago, and I was very impressed by it that I wanted to also share this with you. And it fits in very well with what I am saying today.
Once again, it is called God’s Love Letter from Genesis to Revelation. And it contains Bible verses throughout the Bible speaks about the persistent and constant love that our heavenly Father has for us, which is the message of the parable of the Prodigal Son.
(www.fathersloveletter.com/English/fllposter.pdf)
Father’s Love Letter
The Cry Of A Father’s Heart From Genesis To Revelation
My Child…
You may not know me, but I know everything about you
…Psalm 139:1
I know when you sit down and when you rise up
…Psalm 139:2
I am familiar with all your ways
…Psalm 139:3
Even the very hairs on your head are numbered
…Matthew 10:29-31
For you were made in my image
…Genesis 1:27
In me you live and move and have your being
…Acts 17:28
For you are my offspring
…Acts 17:28
I knew you even before you were conceived
…Jeremiah 1:4-5
I chose you when I planned creation
…Ephesians 1:11-12
You were not a mistake, for all your days are written in my book
…Psalm 139:15-16
I determined the exact time of your birth and where you would live
…Acts 17:26
You are fearfully and wonderfully made
…Psalm 139:14
I knit you together in your mother’s womb
…Psalm 139:13
And brought you forth on the day you were born
…Psalm 71:6
I have been misrepresented by those who don’t know me
…John 8:41-44
I am not distant and angry, but am the complete expression of love
…1 John 4:16
And it is my desire to lavish my love on you
…1 John 3:1
Simply because you are my child and I am your Father
…1 John 3:1
I offer you more than your earthly father ever could
…Matthew 7:11
For I am the perfect father
…Matthew 5:48
Every good gift that you receive comes from my hand
…James 1:17
For I am your provider and I meet all your needs
…Matthew 6:31-33
My plan for your future has always been filled with hope
…Jeremiah 29:11
Because I love you with an everlasting love
…Jeremiah 31:3
My thoughts toward you are countless as the sand on the seashore
...Psalms 139:17-18
And I rejoice over you with singing
…Zephaniah 3:17
I will never stop doing good to you
…Jeremiah 32:40
For you are my treasured possession
…Exodus 19:5
I desire to establish you with all my heart and all my soul
…Jeremiah 32:41
And I want to show you great and marvelous things
…Jeremiah 33:3
If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me
…Deuteronomy 4:29
Delight in me and I will give you the desires of your heart
…Psalm 37:4
For it is I who gave you those desires
…Philippians 2:13
I am able to do more for you than you could possibly imagine
…Ephesians 3:20
For I am your greatest encourager
…2 Thessalonians 2:16-17
I am also the Father who comforts you in all your troubles
…2 Corinthians 1:3-4
When you are brokenhearted, I am close to you
…Psalm 34:18
As a shepherd carries a lamb, I have carried you close to my heart
…Isaiah 40:11
One day I will wipe away every tear from your eyes
…Revelation 21:3-4
And I’ll take away all the pain you have suffered on this earth
…Revelation 21:3-4
I am your Father, and I love you even as I love my son, Jesus
…John 17:23
For in Jesus, my love for you is revealed
…John 17:26
He is the exact representation of my being
…Hebrews 1:3
He came to demonstrate that I am for you, not against you
…Romans 8:31
And to tell you that I am not counting your sins
…2 Corinthians 5:18-19
Jesus died so that you and I could be reconciled
…2 Corinthians 5:18-19
His death was the ultimate expression of my love for you
…1 John 4:10
I gave up everything I loved that I might gain your love
…Romans 8:31-32
If you receive the gift of my son Jesus, you receive me
…1 John 2:23
And nothing will ever separate you from my love again
…Romans 8:38-39
Come home and I’ll throw the biggest party heaven has ever seen
…Luke 15:7
I have always been Father, and will always be Father
…Ephesians 3:14-15
My question is…Will you be my child?
…John 1:12-13
I am waiting for you
…Luke 15:11-32
Love, Your Dad. Almighty God
IV. Conclusion
In conclusion, why are men desperate? The answer is because their desires are not met.
The older brother desired recognition for his long years of work.
The prodigal desired to get away and then later on desired to come home.
The father desired the return of his lost boy.
In each case, these men became desperate because their desires were not met.
I hope that this message will remind us all to share our desires with God, and then when we experience our desires are met in light of God’s grace, then we will no longer be desperate but instead experience peace, which is always what God desires for us. Let us pray.
